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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- The Huntsville Post, Society of American Military Engineers, honored the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville's director of Engineering April 17 with its Engineer of the Year Award, recognizing many years of contributions to both the post and Huntsville Center.

Boyce Ross, a registered professional engineer in the State of Alabama, has been a member of the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) for more than 15 years and has worked for the Huntsville Center for 27 of his 31 years of federal government service.

One theme is common in both capacities: training and mentoring young engineers.

Ross, who received the SAME Young Engineer of the Year Award in 1992, is an active member of the University of Alabama in Huntsville's Engineering Industrial Advisory Board and chairs the Civil Engineering Advisory Board. He helped establish a partnering agreement with Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University through the Advancing Minorities in Engineering (AMIE) organization and support to AAMU's engineering student mentor program. In addition, he sponsors six professional development hour (PDH) seminars per year and the Post's PDH program.

Ross ensures young engineers receive the training and guidance they need to succeed. He used the Department of the Army intern program to hire more than 54 interns in the past five years. Ross has developed experts in blast design and explosives safety, ordnance remediation, Medical Facility design, Electronic Security and Utility Monitoring and Controls.

"Training and mentoring young engineers is critical to the continuing success of the Corps of Engineers and the nation," Ross said. "In 2008, four out of every 100 U.S. graduates was an engineer. This is among the lowest in the world -- only 14 countries graduate a lower percentage of engineers -- countries like: Bangladesh, Cambodia and Cuba. In Russia, 10 out of 100 graduates is an engineer. In China, 31 out of 100 graduates is an engineer. If we don't train and mentor young engineers -- and encourage students to pursue the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers -- we will not be able to meet the future demand for those skills."

"Mr. Ross does an outstanding job of training these young engineers; he encourages professional development through technical presentations at brown bag lunches and SAME meetings," said John Matthews, president of the Huntsville Post SAME, who nominated Ross for the award.

"This is a wonderful SAME post, and I am proud to support it in any way I can. They have a very active recognition program that brings a lot of value to the engineering community and the post," Ross said.

Matthews said Ross also leads one of the most talented and diverse engineering workforces in USACE. "This workforce consists of more than 270 engineers, architects, designers, scientist and support personnel who routinely execute more than $1 billion of work annually."

The Engineering Directorate is responsible for all engineering aspects of design, construction and life cycle maintenance of military facilities and installations, which includes planning through disposal, including design, construction, environmental protection, base operations and support, housing and real property maintenance.

During his career, Ross supported some of the Army's most challenging missions such as complex programs like Chemical Demilitarization, National Missile Defense, Medical Facilities Design and Construction and a wide variety of Installation Support programs and projects.